Fort Nepean rescue a model for Queen Vic Market as developers circle

By Monica Dux

3 August 2018 — 12:30pm

Of all the destinations that my family regularly visits on our weekend outings, my favourite is Fort Nepean on the tip of the Mornington Peninsula. We always stop to see where Harold Holt disappeared, speculating about nefarious Chinese submarines, before moving on to the spot where the first shot of World War I was fired, as my kids run around the tunnels, fighting imaginary Germans. At the end of the visit we inevitably end up talking about the folly of war, the children full of solemn questions.

Fort Nepean isn't dressed up. There's no fancy visitors' centre with interactive screens, no audio tour you can hire at a modest price, no gift shop full of plastic souvenirs. Even the signs dotted about the place, outlining the site's history, are rusty and minimal.

Illustration: Robin Cowcher

When we last visited we were disappointed to discover that the road to the fort was being improved, so most of the park was closed. But our picnic lunch was already packed, so we decided to eat it on the beach near the car park, next to the remnants of the old quarantine station.

Quarantine stations are by their nature sombre places, where people languished either ill, or in fear of illness. And so I'd never lingered there myself. But as we wandered about the site I realised what a mistake that had been.

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Like the fort itself, there are few services here, just basic picnic facilities, public toilets, and a modest visitors' centre where you can hire bikes. Some of the old buildings are open, but once again, they are presented without flourish, leaving a lot to the imagination. Yet it's precisely that minimalism that makes the place so haunting.

In one building we gaped at the remains of two huge and ancient machines that were used for fumigating new arrivals' luggage. At the old hospital building, my son frightened my daughter with an invented ghost story about a former patient, so much so that she refused to enter. Even after I assured her that he'd made it all up, she couldn't be moved. In a place like this, it's easy enough to believe in ghosts.

Afterwards, as we sat on the grass in the winter sun, my husband commented on how peaceful it all was. And that is the most striking feature of the place. Yet it's also the quality that seems most precarious.

A decade-and-a-half ago there was a move to develop the Point, but thanks to tenacious activists, those plans were scuttled. Then, just before the last state election, the then Liberal government did a deal to build a luxury resort here, offering up the best parts of the site to the privileged few, while robbing everyone else of a chance to fully enjoy this unique place. Thankfully, that was shut down by the incoming Andrews Government, who earlier this year released a far less invasive plan for the area.

The attraction of a place like Point Nepean isn't just that it's beautiful, but that it's untouched, unassuming and underdeveloped. I'm sure that a huge amount of work goes into maintaining it all, but that effort is largely invisible. You feel that the place is presented as it really is, uncurated and authentic. And it's all completely free.

It's curious how little weight these qualities are given in our public discourse. When we do talk about public spaces it seems to always be with an eye to improving them, building them up, expanding and transforming. Such schemes are usually sold with talk of improving amenity and providing better facilities, yet if you look closely, you will almost always find that someone is making a heap of money out of the deal.

As we drove home that afternoon we passed the Queen Victoria Market, another site that is the subject of passionate dispute, with the development-hungry Melbourne City Council determined to completely overhaul the market, in a way that has left many traders and ordinary Melburnians despairing and enraged.

The question at the heart of this debate is not whether the market needs to be improved, but how far this redevelopment should go. Those who oppose the council's radical overhaul advocate a subtler, more sympathetic, less invasive approach.

But even if we accept that those in favour of the radical redevelopment have the best intentions, a deeper question remains: what will be lost in the development process? How do we value idiosyncrasy, charm and history? Aren't there times when it is enough to maintain what we love, rather than always needing to "develop" it?